Contrast-enhanced mammography identified tumors as accurately as more expensive scans. But it is not widely used for screening in the United States.Cancer screening poses a quandary for women with dense breast tissue. They’re at elevated risk for breast cancer, but mammograms often miss tumors buried in dense breasts — and insurers often resist paying for additional scans that may help find the masses.Now a large study comparing various types of scans has found that mammography enhanced with iodine-based dye can detect three times as many invasive cancers in dense breast tissue as ultrasound.And so-called contrast-enhanced mammography can find tumors that are much smaller than those found by regular mammography. M.R.I.s are better at detecting more tumors than standard mammograms, the study found, but are considerably more expensive.The scans were given to women with dense breast tissue who had already undergone mammograms that hadn’t turned up any abnormalities.“Contrast-enhanced mammography needs to become standard of care for women with dense breasts,” if they are at high risk of developing breast cancer, said Dr. Fiona J. Gilbert, a professor of radiology at the University of Cambridge’s School of Clinical Medicine. She is lead author of the study, which was published Wednesday in The Lancet.Tumors typically show up as white spots on mammograms, but dense breast tissue also appears white, obscuring the tumors.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

21 minutes agoShareSaveBecky MortonPolitical reporterShareSavePA MediaDoctors in England are threatening strike action after they were handed a 4% pay rise. The British Medical Association (BMA), the union representing doctors, said the increase – effective from 1 April – was “derisory” and did not go far enough in reversing historical pay freezes. Meanwhile, the National Education Union (NEU) said it was likely to “register a dispute” with the government if it did not commit to fully funding the 4% pay rise for teachers in England. Health Secretary Wes Streeting defended the offers on Thursday, saying they were above inflation – the rate prices are rising.BMA council chairman Prof Philip Banfield said doctors’ pay was still around a quarter less than it was 16 years ago, when taking account of inflation. He said the pay rise “takes us backwards, pushing pay restoration even further into the distance without a government plan or reassurance to correct this erosion of what a doctor is worth”. Dr Banfield added that “no one wants a return to scenes of doctors on picket lines” but the government’s actions had “sadly made this look far more likely”.The BMA said it would ballot members next week over possible strike action. The Department of Health said resident doctors, formerly called junior doctors, would get an extra £750 top-up, taking their average pay rise to 5.4%. Resident doctors took part in 11 separate strikes during 2023 and 2024 as they had been arguing for a 35% increase to make up for 15 years of below-inflation pay awards.They were given rises worth an average of 22% over the last two years to bring an end to those strikes – and the BMA argues this year’s pay award did not do enough to make up that remaining shortfall.Meanwhile, health unions reacted angrily after a smaller rise of 3.6% was announced for other NHS staff, including nurses, midwives and other front-line workers. The Royal College of Nursing said it was “grotesque” that nurses had been offered a smaller rise than doctors, which it said would be “entirely swallowed up” by price rises.The union plans to consult nurses on whether they are happy with the rise, or if they want to move forward with industrial action. If they back the latter, a formal strike ballot could be run.NHS staff in Wales and Northern Ireland are likely to be given the same pay award, as the governments there have accepted the same recommendations.Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting said: “This government was never going to be able to fully reverse a decade and a half of neglect in under a year, but this year’s pay increases – and last year’s – represent significant progress in making sure that NHS staff are properly recognised for the outstanding work they do.”Inflation unexpectedly rose to 3.5% in the year to April, with economic forecasters predicting a figure of 3.2% for this financial year.While education unions broadly welcomed the pay rise, they raised concerns it would only be partly covered by government. The education department has announced an additional £615m to cover the rises, but said schools would be asked to partially fund the awards through “improved productivity and smarter spending”.Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the NEU, the largest teaching union, said in many schools this would result in “cuts in service provision to children and young people, job losses, and additional workloads for an already overstretched profession”.He added: “Unless the government commit to fully funding the pay rise then it is likely that the NEU will register a dispute with the government on the issue of funding, and campaign to ensure every parent understands the impact of a cut in the money available to schools, and that every politician understands this too.”Kebede told the BBC his union would consult members over the offer, but he felt it would be “broadly acceptable” and that strike action was “very unlikely”.The rises come after ministers accepted proposals from a series of pay review bodies, which are tasked with recommending pay awards for around 45% of people working in the public sector.The awards are higher than the 2.8% the Treasury previously budgeted for, with ministers saying most of the remainder will have to come from existing budgets.Labour ended long-running public sector strikes last summer by accepting recommended pay rises between 4.75% and 6% for last year.Ministers argued the move was required to stop damage to the economy – but it led to Conservative accusations they had lost control of public sector pay.Edward Argar, shadow health secretary, said: “We warned Labour that the unions would simply come back for more when they gave in to the strikes and agreed to above-inflation pay demands with no strings attached.”Now, with the threat of renewed strikes once again casting a shadow over the NHS, that warning is becoming reality.”

Though much remains uncertain, experts predicted many people will face new barriers to vaccination.The Food and Drug Administration announced this week that it was likely to limit access to Covid vaccines among healthy children and adults this fall.While the shots will most likely still be available for people 65 and older or with certain underlying conditions, F.D.A. officials say more research is needed to determine whether healthy Americans need a shot every year.But critics say it is dangerous to limit access to vaccines for a virus that still leads to hospitalizations and deaths every day, and continues to evolve. Covid has been linked to more than 1.2 million deaths in the United States, though the rate of hospitalizations and deaths has fallen considerably.The ongoing risk means that many people in the healthy category may still want a vaccine to avoid virus complications, or to protect a high-risk loved one or an infant who has never had Covid.Here’s what experts expect if the plan goes forward.Who will be eligible for the vaccine?Historically, almost everyone has been eligible for Covid vaccines; the C.D.C. recommended the most recent vaccine for all Americans over 6 months of age.But in an article published in The New England Journal of Medicine on Tuesday, F.D.A. officials said they would require new research into how effective the Covid vaccines are in healthy people before issuing an updated approval for a broader population. The vaccine is expected to remain available for anyone who is at least 65 or who has a medical condition that can increase the risk of severe illness or death.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

The consultant had deleted records involving McKinsey’s role in pushing OxyContin sales and driving the opioid crisis.A former senior partner at McKinsey & Company was sentenced on Thursday to six months in prison for destroying records that shed light on the firm’s role in the national opioid crisis.The partner, Martin Elling, 60, had pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice as part of a federal case against the firm and its efforts to “turbocharge” sales of OxyContin during an overdose epidemic that had already killed hundreds of thousands of people. McKinsey agreed to pay $650 million to end that investigation last December.The records purge happened in 2018, when Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, was facing multiple lawsuits. Mr. Elling emailed a colleague who worked with him on the Purdue account, writing: “It probably makes sense to have a quick conversation with the risk committee to see if we should be doing anything” other than “eliminating all our documents and emails. Suspect not but as things get tougher there someone might turn to us.”Mr. Elling was fired after The New York Times reported about the exchange in 2020.After he sent that email, Mr. Elling proceeded to delete files related to his work with Purdue, according to the Justice Department, which performed a forensic analysis of his laptop.In a statement on Thursday, Mr. Elling’s legal team confirmed the sentencing and said he “fully accepts responsibility for his conduct, for which he is extremely sorry.” Besides the six-month prison term, handed down in Federal District Court in Abingdon, Va., Mr. Elling will serve 1,000 hours of community service over two years of supervised release.McKinsey’s work with clients around the world has come under intense public scrutiny in recent years, leading the firm to pay out more than $1.5 billion in fines and penalties. Last year, McKinsey’s work in China was the focus of a Senate hearing, and the firm agreed to pay more than $122 million to resolve a bribery investigation involving a branch in South Africa.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

16 minutes agoShareSaveNavtej Johal & Sophie WoodcockBBC News, NottinghamShareSaveSuppliedTwo men with paranoid schizophrenia stabbed members of the public in separate attacks weeks before Valdo Calocane’s killings in Nottingham – and all were under the care of the same NHS trust, the BBC has found.Josef Easom-Cooper and Junior Dietlin injured six men in the stabbings in Nottinghamshire in 2023.Within weeks, Calocane – who also has paranoid schizophrenia – stabbed to death Barnaby Webber, Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Ian Coates on 13 June 2023.Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust has been criticised over its care of Calocane, and in response to the BBC’s findings, apologised to those “affected for any aspects of our care that were not of the high standard our patients deserve”.SuppliedOn 9 April 2023, Easom-Cooper stabbed a worshipper who was leaving an Easter Sunday service at St Stephen’s Church in Sneinton.The BBC has spoken to his victim, a man in his 40s, who survived. He did not wish to be interviewed.Shelly said as a teenager, her son was under the care of child and adolescent mental health services (Camhs) in Nottingham.”I started to routinely go into his room and I would find knives… I found an axe, my kitchen knives would quite often be in his room,” she said.Shelly said she would take photos of the weapons, and inform police and mental health services whenever she came across them.SuppliedAccording to Shelly, things massively deteriorated when Easom-Cooper turned 18.During the grips of a psychotic episode, he left Highbury Hospital – where he was due to be sectioned – to kill a friend before he was stopped.He was then sectioned by the hospital – run by Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust – in July 2022 for three months, but Shelly says she told staff he was not ready to be discharged.”He was not OK when he was released,” she said. “There was no way he was going to take his medication and I told them that… it was literally just a time bomb waiting to happen.”Easom-Cooper was placed in accommodation managed by a housing association, but Shelly said he was “unravelling” in the seven months he was there, and not taking his medication while under the care of the trust’s community team.Shelly remembers her shock and frustration when she learned about her son’s knife attack.”I just bloody knew this was going to happen,” she said. “I’m so sorry it happened. I really am. And as a mother, he’s my son and he did that and that makes me feel quite ashamed.”Family handoutShe said the stabbing could have been prevented if her son’s paranoid schizophrenia had been taken more seriously.”It’s disgusting that it takes someone to either lose their life or be stabbed before somebody thinks ‘oh, hang on a minute, maybe we need to do something here’. “The mental health services in Nottingham have routinely and systematically let him down and also the victim,” she added.Easom-Cooper was sentenced to a hospital order in December 2023.Rachel Price/BBCNine weeks before Easom-Cooper’s attack, Junior Dietlin stabbed five “complete strangers” over a weekend in Nottingham and Mansfield in February 2023.In what a prosecutor described as “a most odd and extraordinary case”, Dietlin stabbed five men once in the right bicep and then ran away in separate attacks.One of the men stabbed was former police officer Keith Grafton, who was walking home from a pub in Mansfield.”Suddenly, [there was] a quick thump on my right arm… I know I’ve been stabbed straight away because I felt the knife going into my skin,” the 71-year-old said.Keith says his attacker then ran off before he could “get anywhere near him”.He said although the attack did not leave any lasting injuries, he was now “very wary” about going out late at night.Dietlin was sentenced to a hospital order, but Keith says he was “disappointed” Dietlin did not receive a prison sentence.Nottinghamshire PoliceThe BBC has seen a report conducted by the trust into its contact with Dietlin.It said during a four-week stay at Highbury Hospital in June 2022, Dietlin was involved in violent incidents with staff and diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.The report said his family “could not express the wish that he remain in hospital a while longer”.It added that, after his discharge, he took his medication “very irregularly”.The family, the report added, “felt they were in a good position to observe subtle changes” in Dietlin’s behaviour “that indicated he was unwell”, but when community staff visited, they concluded there were “no signs of psychosis”.Dietlin stabbed his first victim on 8 February 2023, and the report said he was visited by staff for a medication drop the next day.On 11 and 12 February, he stabbed four more people.Two weeks after, the trust conducted an “initial management review”, from which they “did not identify any learning”, according to the report.In a statement, the trust said these reviews are “completed straightaway to establish if there is any immediate learning while the full investigation is being completed”.Nottinghamshire PoliceEarlier this year, an NHS England commissioned review into Calocane’s care found major failings by the trust. Dietlin’s incident was highlighted among 15 in that report of patients “either under the current care of the trust or who had been discharged from the trust, perpetrating serious violence towards members of the community” between 2019 and 2023.The independent review concluded the trust has an “absence of a robust approach to risk management”.Keith Grafton said he did not know Dietlin’s history of mental health issues, nor that he had been previously sectioned.He believes the decision to discharge his attacker into the community was “a big failing” by the trust, whom he blames for what happened to him.”If they’d done their job properly, then it wouldn’t have happened,” he added.PA MediaNottingham was brought to a standstill on 13 June 2023 in the wake of the attacks carried out by Calocane, who was sentenced to a hospital order in January 2024.He had been sectioned four times in under two years before his attacks, but was discharged by the trust because he “disengaged” from its community mental health team in September 2022.It meant there was no contact between Calocane and mental health services, or his GP, for about nine months before the killings.Details of Calocane’s medical records were revealed in a BBC Panorama documentary and the NHS commissioned report, which also stated that “the system got it wrong” with the triple killer. Shelly said she felt the missed opportunities in Calocane’s care mirrored her son’s experience.She added: “When I became aware of the facts, I thought that could have so easily have been Josef… I just remember thinking ‘you know what? I’m glad he’s in hospital’.”Those poor people had their lives cut short in such hideous ways for no reason, just because we’re not putting proper time and effort into making sure that people are well enough to walk the streets.”Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of mental health charity SANE, said the BBC’s findings show that had the trust learned lessons from Dietlin and Easom-Cooper, then Calocane’s killings could have been prevented.”Their failings were failure to listen to the families, failure to watch the person… and the failures to protect both the patient and then the public by discharging them far too early when they are too ill,” she said.’Apologise to those affected’Neil Hudgell, a solicitor representing the families of Calocane’s victims, said the BBC’s findings showed “that very little ever resonates as it should with mental health trusts, and potentially had they learned effectively enough over the years, the events of 13 June 2023 would not have happened”.”The families continue to rage at the incredibly sad and needless loss of the lives of their much-missed loved ones,” he added.In a statement, Dr Sue Elcock, deputy chief executive and executive medical director at the NHS trust, said: “I want to reassure people that following any serious incident, we carry out an investigation in order to identify any areas for learning and improvement.”We apologise to those affected for any aspects of our care that were not of the high standard our patients deserve.”The statement added the trust had “a more robust patient discharge policy and a sharper focus on assessing and managing any risks patients may pose to others”.Dr Elcock added: “We have made significant changes to improve family engagement, and the involvement of patients and their families and our family liaison team is included in all considerations.”On Thursday, the government confirmed the public inquiry into the attacks was under way, and will report back within two years with recommendations to prevent similar incidents. Timeline8 February 2023: Junior Dietlin stabs his first victim close to his home in Nottingham11 and 12 February 2023: Dietlin stabs four other strangers in separate attacks 9 April 2023: A worshipper is stabbed outside a church in Nottingham by Josef Easom-Cooper 11 April 2023: Easom-Cooper is charged with causing grievous bodily harm with intent13 June 2023: Valdo Calocane stabs to death Barnaby Webber, Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Ian Coates, and seriously injures Wayne Birkett, Sharon Miller and Marcin Gawronski in NottinghamDecember 2023: Easom-Cooper is sentenced to a hospital order 25 January 2024: Calocane is given a hospital order after admitting manslaughter on the basis of diminished responsibility and attempted murder12 April 2024: Dietlin is detained indefinitely under hospital order More on this storyRelated internet links

1 hour agoShareSaveShareSavePA MediaBoris Johnson pushed for a more “ruthless, authoritarian approach” towards people who refused to self-isolate during the pandemic, according to documents seen by the Covid inquiry.The instinct of policy makers was to favour “punitive measures” over financial support, wrote Lord Patrick Vallance who spoke to the PM throughout the crisis and appeared alongside him on TV briefings.Diary entries written during that time by Lord Vallance, then the UK’s chief scientific adviser, revealed officials “always want[ed] to go for stick, not carrot”.Lord Vallance has said his diary entries were informal personal reflections and “late night musings”, never intended for publication.PA MediaHe was giving evidence to the sixth part of the Covid inquiry, which is investigating test, trace and quarantine policies.During 90 minutes of questioning, he was shown a series of entries from his evening diaries from the first year of the pandemic.On 12 August 2020, he wrote about a meeting with the prime minister and his senior aides, including then chief adviser Dominic Cummings and cabinet secretary Simon Case.”Instinct of this crew is to go for more enforcement and punitive measures,” he wrote.”We suggested more carrot and incentives [were] required to make people take a test, self-isolate etc, but they always want to go for stick not carrot.”Asked who he was referring to in that entry, Lord Vallance said it would have been the “decision-makers for policy”.In another entry, on 25 September 2020, as Covid cases were rising once again, he quoted Boris Johnson as saying: “We need a lot more punishments and a lot more closing down”.And in a further entry on 7 January 2021, just after the start of the third nationwide lockdown, he wrote: “PM says: ‘We haven’t been ruthless enough. We need to force more isolation. I favour a more authoritarian approach.'”However, he also added: “Rather late in the day, the PM is understanding that incentives (or removal of disincentives) need to be in place to help people.”On 28 September 2020, ministers introduced a legal duty for those who had tested positive for Covid or were contacted by the test-and-trace service to self-isolate in England. It was announced that fines of between £1,000 and £10,000 would be imposed on repeat offenders.Test-and-trace support payments of £500 were also offered for those on lower incomes.Sir Patrick said it was “important to remember” the purpose of mass testing was to identify potentially infectious individuals who could self-isolate and “if isolation isn’t happening, then testing isn’t really doing what it’s supposed to be doing”.When the new rules were introduced, Boris Johnson said the public needed to do “all it could to control the spread of the virus” and prevent the most vulnerable from becoming infected.PA MediaEarlier, Matt Hancock told the inquiry it was “crucial” the UK should retain its ability to rapidly scale-up mass testing for a new disease in any future pandemic.The former health secretary said he was concerned the testing system set up in 2020 was now being dismantled, making it much harder to respond.”The critical thing is that we absolutely must, as a nation, be ready to radically expand capacity once a test is developed,” he said. “We were not last time.”Asymptomatic infectionsMr Hancock was asked about a letter he was sent, on 14 April 2020, by two Nobel prize winning scientists, Sir Paul Nurse and Sir Peter Ratcliffe, urging that all healthcare workers be offered regular tests for the virus.In evidence last week, Prof Nurse said his letter had been “ignored” by the secretary of state for three months, before he received an “anodyne response” from another civil servant.Regular testing of care home workers didn’t start until the summer of 2020 in England, while NHS staff and other social care workers were not offered weekly tests until November of that year.Mr Hancock said he had not seen the letter personally and by that point, the government was already putting in place policies to tackle the transmission of the virus by people without clear Covid symptoms.”The argument that is implied is that, somehow, somebody eminent who won a Nobel Prize knew something and we ignored it. It’s just not true. It’s not what happened,” he said.

The report echoes many of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s talking points on ultraprocessed foods and vaccines, but with some notable omissions.In a sweeping new report, the White House outlined what it sees as the drivers of disease in American children.“To turn the tide and better protect our children, the United States must act decisively,” reads the report, which was produced by a presidential commission tasked with combating childhood disease. “During this administration, we will begin reversing the childhood chronic disease crisis by confronting its root causes — not just its symptoms.”The document echoes talking points Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has championed for decades: the idea that our modern environment is making people sick, and that corporations exert too much influence on research and medicine.The report provides little in the way of specific solutions to address these issues, though the commission is also expected to release recommendations later this year. What the document does offer is the clearest articulation yet of Mr. Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement, and what the broad coalition hopes to accomplish in the coming months and years. Here’s what the new report tells us.The report paints a bleak picture of American childhood.The report presents today’s children as stressed, sleep-deprived and addicted to their screens. It describes rising rates of conditions like obesity, diabetes and mental illness as a crisis that threatens the nation’s health, economy and military readiness. “Today’s children are the sickest generation in American history in terms of chronic disease,” the report says.And it lashes out against technology companies and social media platforms that it says have helped create a “technology-driven lifestyle.” It cites Jonathan Haidt, whose best-selling book “The Anxious Generation” links the rise of smartphones and social media to worsening mental health among children — a theory that some researchers have criticized for relying on inconclusive research. The report also notes that rates of loneliness among children have risen over the past several decades, a concern that researchers and public health experts have also raised for years.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Millions of public sector workers including nurses, doctors and teachers have been offered pay rises of between 3.6% and 4.5%.It comes after the government accepted recommendations from pay review bodies higher than the 2.8% it previously budgeted for.Unions had threatened action if pay awards were not increased, arguing 2.8% was too low.But the Treasury has previously said rises above this will have to be funded through savings from existing budgets. In a series of announcements, the government confirmed NHS workers in England on Agenda for Change contracts, covering most staff apart from doctors, dentists and senior managers, have been offered rises of 3.6%.Doctors and dentists have been offered 4% awards, as well as teachers in England and prison staff. Members of the armed forces have been offered 4.5%.Recommended awards of 3.25% for senior NHS managers and senior civil servants have also been accepted by ministers. The education department has announced £615m in additional funding to help cover the cost of pay rises this year.But it has said schools will be asked to fund the first 1% of pay awards through “improved productivity and smarter spending”.Inflation – the rate prices are increasing – has fallen in recent months, but unexpectedly rose to 3.5% in the year to April, potentially complicating how ministers sell the deals to workers.The Bank of England has previously said it expects inflation to peak at 3.7% between July and September this year, before slowly falling. Labour ended long-running public sector strikes last summer by accepting recommended pay rises between 4.75% and 6% for last year.Ministers argued the move was required to stop damage to the economy – but it led to Conservative accusations they had lost control of public sector pay.

The report is already receiving pushback from some Republicans and the agriculture industry over fears about the health secretary’s longtime crusade against agricultural chemicals.President Trump on Thursday will release a report that is expected to identify what Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. believes are key drivers of chronic disease in children, including ultra-processed foods, vaccination and environmental toxins like chemicals.The report, from the White House’s Make America Healthy Again Commission, led by Mr. Kennedy, will not offer specific policy prescriptions, according to people familiar with it who insisted on anonymity to speak in advance of its release. Rather, it will be a high-level statement declaring that the nation is in a health crisis, identifying certain causes and offering a blueprint for further investigation and reform.Mr. Trump established the commission in February to examine what he called the “growing health crisis in America.” But he asked the panel to begin by looking at chronic disease in children.Mr. Kennedy has repeatedly said that the United States is suffering from an epidemic of chronic disease that is particularly acute in children, citing the rising incidences of autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.“To fully address the growing health crisis in America, we must re-direct our national focus,” the executive order establishing the commission declared, adding, “This includes fresh thinking on nutrition, physical activity, healthy lifestyles, over-reliance on medication and treatments, the effects of new technological habits, environmental impacts, and food and drug quality and safety.”The executive order paints an especially dark picture of Americans’ health. It notes, for instance, that the United States had the highest incidence rate of cancer in 2021 out of 204 countries and territories, and has experienced an “88 percent increase in cancer” since 1990. But it does not note that death rates for cancer have been steadily declining in the United States.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants to return the nation to a time when he believes Americans were healthier. Not so fast, many researchers say.Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, often says that when his uncle was president in the early 1960s, Americans were much healthier than they are now. People were thinner and had lower rates of chronic disease, he recalls. Fewer children had autism, allergies or autoimmune diseases.On Thursday, the Trump administration plans to release a report, with a particular emphasis on children’s health, premised on the idea that we’ve fallen far since this golden era. But were Americans really healthier back then?The U.S. population was much younger in the 1960s, at the tail end of the Baby Boom, which complicates comparisons. Only 12.4 percent of the population was 65 or older in 1963, compared with 17.7 percent now. Rates of chronic diseases generally increase with age.But Americans must be doing something right: Life expectancy has increased. A child born today can expect to live almost a decade longer than a child born in 1960. That’s partly because advances in medical care mean that conditions that were deadly decades ago can be kept in check for longer now.“If R.F.K. Jr. makes the statement that more people are dying of chronic diseases now than in Jack Kennedy’s era, that’s undoubtedly true — we’ve got twice as many people, and a much larger chunk are old folks who have much higher chronic disease rates,” said Kenneth Warner, dean emeritus of the University of Michigan School of Public Health.“Does that mean we’re doing worse than back then?” he added. “Absolutely not.”Americans have put on the pounds over the decades, as Mr. Kennedy often notes. Diabetes and obesity are on the rise even among adolescents. On the other hand, the country has cut back dramatically on smoking, a habit that once contributed to huge numbers of deaths in the United States.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.